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[ktron]

hurrah for tax returns!

dave got his taxes done professionally, whereas i tackled the 1040A myself. he's getting a slightly bigger chunk back, and i think he said it was something called a "hope credit" that made up most of the difference. i'm happy with what i got, but i'm curious... i think it had something to do with paying to get educated. i took a deduction, i guess i could've taken a credit instead, possibly leading to bigger money? anyone know?

Comments

[ktron.livejournal.com]

ok, i looked at the form, and i think i can safely say the deduction was better in my case... just doing the math in my head, the "tentative hope credit" column came up to $0 :)

[tovven.livejournal.com]

I forgot how much I was able to deduct because of the lifetime learning credit (maybe only $11?), but every little bit is worth it.

I find it completely ironic, however, that I got a refund of $360 from the feds but ended up having to pay in $83 to Alabama.

I think I got fleeced (or maybe I should just move back to TN and get screwed on sales tax but not income tax).

kristin

[ktron.livejournal.com]

yikes! yeah, i s'pose it's kind of odd that in tennessee, at least among the student levels of income, tax season tends to be a time to celebrate rather than bitch... i think i'm going to declare myself as a dependent when i get a job, though (well, so i already did on the manpower form), which could mean paying next year. but my dad has a point - even if the interest rate is lousy, better to have the money and get interest on it. and i know i'm capable of maintaining a savings account. and since i'm still relatively poor and unlikely to get a job that'll put me in the upper income strata, income tax of any sort tends to work out as well or better for me than the sales tax here...

but yeah. my qualified school expenses only came out to around $200, only one semester and with a foreign language scholarship. so now that i think about it again, just deducting it instead of filling out the extra form was probably just fine.